1. Field
The disclosure generally relates to a system and method for dynamically displaying text and icons over video for producing the best viewing experience.
2. General Background and State of the Art
In current implementations, interface elements linked to video playback are limited in where they appear on the screen. For instance, subtitles on some DVDs are hand-placed by a technician over the video to ensure maximum readability. On some DVDs, movie subtitles are placed in only one area of the screen, regardless of their legibility.
In interactive television applications, the set-top box has no knowledge of the capabilities of the connected output device. Therefore, interactive TV designers choose static or arbitrary screen positions to place the graphics and text displayed by their programs. Even if there were space on the screen unused by the video program, these platforms would be unable to take advantage of the extra real estate.
Additionally, set-top boxes, during real-time HDTV transmissions, may position the video signal in a pillar-box mode, for example on a wide-screen television, where there are two black bars on the side of the video portion. The associated subtitled text, for the hearing impaired or including translations in another language, is also placed on the video portion for maximum readability.
However, existing display controllers, such as set-top boxes, DVD players, VCRs and the like, do not position subtitled text on a screen that would allow maximum visibility of the video portion displayed on a television as well as optimum readability of the associated subtitled text.